Chicago Hustle (15 page)

Elijah almost choked on his drink, laughing.

“What the hell's so funny, damn it!”

He straightened up, the cocaine he had snorted in the cab freezing his nose in little ripples. “You are, baby-sweets … you are. I woulda waited for ice water in hell just to see the look on your face after you'd found out that your would-be-slick-ass had been rooked.”

Clotille slid down onto the sofa beside him, flashing a bare knee and thigh through the slit in her robe. “You're a devil, you know that?”

“I been called worse.”

“Well, at any rate, I want my money back.”

“What fuckin' money back?! Shit! you signed a contract, a no-money-back guarantee. If you don't believe me, check your contract out. And besides, what's two hundred to you?”

Clotille slopped half her drink onto the coffee table in front of them and placed the half-smoked roach in an ashtray. “What's
that
supposed to mean?”

Elijah retrieved the joint from the ashtray and took a couple deep hits before answering. “Heyyyy, what do I look like to you? Some new kind o' fool!? Do you think I could believe for a minute that you could live in a joint like this, wear the kind o' garments you wear and drive the kind o' ride you got, on a salesgirl's pay? huh?”

An ugly smile slid onto Clotille's mouth. “What else do you
think
you know about me?”

“What else do you want me to tell you? About how you decided to come down out of your ivory tower and see how the other half was livin'?”

“You really think you know every damned thing, don't you? Well, let me tell you a thing or two,
Mr. Dobson!
”

Elijah watched her closely as she swayed up from the sofa and staggered over to the bar to fix herself a fresh drink. He shook his head sadly, thinking … funny about white folks, lots of 'em … they got everything they need, ain't hurtin' for nothing, lots of 'em, and yet they wind up being more fucked up than people who ain't got shit and ain't never had shit.

Especially the women. Look at this bitch up in here … a three hundred 'n fifty-dollar-a-month apartment, at least … money from a trust fund set up by a cotton plantation daddy. Cotton plantation! The whole concept of her money coming from a cotton plantation had almost blown him away.

He had gotten her into a drunken stupor one night and pumped her … and after that, and a dumb, animal, drunken-two-people orgy, he had searched through enough papers to find out the whole business of her life. Family albums and captions were a dead giveaway.

“Phillip, are you listenin' to me!?” she screamed across the room.

“Yeah, I'm listenin' to you,” he replied absently.

“Yes, it's true, about what you're sayin', about me havin' money. But about my daddy havin' money … money! moneyyy!”

He watched her carefully, recognizing the fact that she had reached the fucked-up point, and that beyond that would be no sense … or worse.

“Yeah, sure, he had, has money … and I could continue to be a parasite if I wanted to. Are you trying to see how the other half is living by being a parasite?”

The way she said it made him angry enough to leave, or kick her ass. He placed his glass on the table and stood up to leave.

“Where're you goin'?” she asked him, her voice almost caricaturing a black dialect.

“You think I wanna sit here 'n listen to all this bullshit?” he blustered back at her, not really sure of why he wanted to split, feeling a little fucked up himself, behind the girl, the drink and the smoke.

“Yeahhhh, you think I'm gon' sit here … what the hell do you think I care 'bout how hard you had it, you knew you didn't have to … not after you realized you was free, white and yo' da da was gonna wipe your ass whenever it needed it.”

He heard his words and felt, somehow, that they were a continuation of some argument they had had, from some other time.

“That's the kind of thinkin' that will keep you down in the ghetto, just another li'l black hustler!” she shot back at him, also going back to an earlier “discussion,” both of them feeling slightly nutted out on their highs.

“You neurotic white punk bitch!”

He was across the room, slamming his fists to her head and jaw before the word was fully released. “Nigggg …!” A few wild chops cut her down. He stood over her feeling murderous.

“Oohhh, my God! I didn't mean … I didn't mean to call you anything wrong … I'm sorry … sorry … sorry …”

He looked down into her pleading eyes, hating her. “Bitch! The nerve of you! callin' me a nigger. I oughta stomp your ass into the ground!”

Clotille groveled on the rug around his pants cuffs, a caricature of a woman begging for absolution. “Phillip, please forgive me … I didn't mean …”

He stumbled, pulling his leg out of her grasp, walked to the door and turned to spit on the floor before opening it. “That's what I think of you!” he said coldly and walked out scowling.

Outside in the corridor, he leaned his ear against the door to listen to her drunken sobs, feeling pleased with himself about it all, about how quickly he had handled things.

He had double feelings, heading toward the elevator … one part of him aroused by her pathetic sounds and the treatment he knew she would give him if he went back. But his head prevailed. She would be more and more a problem as time went on because that's where they had been headed from the beginning … his vibes had told him that, and besides, she was a Taurus.

Waiting for the elevator, a developing erection flashed his mind back and forth, from going back down the hallway to Clotille to paying Ramona Brown a visit. Ramona, he decided, that's what I need, a li'l soul work …

He didn't pay the woman much attention as she stood beside him, waiting for the elevator … just another middle-aged, trying-to-be-young white woman with a crinkly tan.

She crinkled her mouth into a patronizing smile as she hesitantly stepped into the elevator with him. “Are you delivering something in the building?” she asked.

“Yeah, I'm delivering bad, black vibrations. You want some?”

She shook her head unconsciously and stared at the wooden panels in the elevator with the dull look of someone who had been severely shocked.

“And you too, ol' jiveass, Unca' Tom son of a bitch!”

He called back to the doorman, watching him kowtow to the white woman as he walked down the street, looking for a cab, on his way to Sister Brown's house.

He felt her eyes on his face even before he was fully awake. Which one was this? he asked himself as he slowly fluttered his eyes open.

Ramona. Yeah, right. Now I remember. Fucked up, being stopped by the pigs over on the Other side, taken to the nearest bus stop. A bus to 35th Street and then a cab to Ramona's.

He stared at her. Five feet, two inches tall, coffee 'n cream colored, one hundred and fifteen delicious pounds, unmarried, under twenty-four years old and square as a brick.

“Phil?”

Elijah frowned slightly, a bad, thick taste in his mouth. Phil? Oooh yes … I
am
Phillip Dobson. God! I bet this young bitch would die if she found out that she had been screwin' a dude whose name wasn't even what she thought it was … either that or she'd go nuts.

“Hmmmmmm?” he mumbled, sliding his left leg across both of her lush thighs.

“You know … my boyfriend is really mad at me.”

Elijah reached over to the bedside table for a cigarette, decided to smoke the rest of the joint they had started on last night. Nothing better than starting off the day high. Wonder where she gets this dynamite?

“Why?” he asked, holding his second deep hit in.

“Well … he wanted to see me on Friday, but you said you were coming over, so I cancelled him out … but you didn't show up.”

“Had somethin' to do, baby. You know how that is.” He spoke softly and blew a stream of smoke into her face.

“Then he called me at work yesterday to ask me if he could see me tonight … but I didn't know if you were coming over, so … I … uhh …”

Elijah cocked a hot eye at her bare breasts. “When are you all supposed to be gettin' married?”

“Next month,” she answered shyly, pulling the cover up over her breasts.

Elijah stubbed the joint out and slid down in bed, pulling her with him.

“Heyyyy, baby,” he reassured her, feeling a slight resistance. “I can't git it all. There'll be enough left for that young fool. I'm just seasonin' it up a li'l bit for 'im.”

She buried her face in the muscles of his chest and sighhhed. “Phil, you just make me feel terrible … just terrible.”

He smiled down on her perma-straightened head. Yeah, I just bet I do …

CHAPTER 8

Elijah blew a long whistle of amazement to discover that there was a parking space practically in front of the Afro Lounge … known up until two weeks before as the Tiger Lounge.

The sign in the window said in bold, florid letters, “Under New Management,” but Elijah and the other regulars knew that there was no new management, the owner's ol' lady had just simply gotten tired of calling the place the Tiger Lounge and had decided to go for something she felt would be more relevant.

He made certain that the fast ladies tripping around outside the club and all of the telegraphers spotted him as he was parking his car. It was two years late but filled with gleaming fixtures and stuffed with imitation black panther upholstery.

The Toe was responsible for him having it, clearing the deck with someone to make certain he was riding, at half the price someone else would have had to pay. “A dude who can sell like you, bruh … oughta be in the saddle.”

Elijah had added gangster whitewalls and now he was on the scene, stylin' for the people who could really dig such things.

He took his time to lock the door and to double-check his defense system, installed primarily to prevent dope fiends and others from ripping his tapes and cassettes off.

He straightened up and turned to face the flickering neon lights, on stage, his stage. The street vibes and the Bolivian cocaine in his nostrils told him it was Saturday night and all was well.

His timing was excellent. They were all there, even the ones he had wanted to see when he first returned to the set, but couldn't. Yeahhhh, they were all there, waiting for him, it seemed to him … staring down at the twisted faces, the smiling faces, the ugly faces, the pretty faces, the faces of all the people he had been seeing in dreams and nightmares, ever since he had decided to do his thang.

“Bruh 'Lijah, c'mon on over here, lemme spend some o' this dirty money on buying you a drink!” Precious Percy, the pimp, called out to him, admiring his stance in the door, recognizing coke macho. Elijah slowly strutted along the length of the bar to a stool beside Precious, nodding coolly to the people he felt some cohesion with.

Precious ordered drinks and turned to Elijah, loaded himself. “You oughta come on into my line o' work, bruh … you were cut out for it, and believe me, I wouldn't say that to one nigger in a thousand … 'course, I have to admit that ho's ain't quite what they used to be …”

“Too much strain 'n pain, Precious. I'm havin' enough trouble tryin' to keep my shit together, freelance … and besides, I couldn't take the hours.”

Precious laughed quietly and shrugged. “Yeahhh, I hear ya, brotherman, I hear ya.”

Sid the Shark paused between the two men, checking out the action out of the corner of his eye. “What the fuck you two slick ass motherfuckers plottin'?”

Both of them turned smiles on him … Sid was not one to be casually out on Saturday night, his thing was business, business and more business.

“Heyyy, Sid, what's goin' on?”

“Yeahhh, what's happenin', Sid?”

Sid roved his pouchy, foxy eyes all over a trio of dazzling young female bodies at a nearby table before answering. “I got my hands full … tryin' to keep these young fools away from what's righteously mine.”

Percy and Elijah exchanged winks, following Sidney's gaze; if there was one thing the Shark really loved, it was young pussy.

He drifted away as Nick and Leelah strolled in; Nick, catching sight of Elijah before Leelah did, looked away nervously. Elijah smiled maliciously in their direction.

“See. Now that's the kind of shit that makes your job hard.”

Precious nodded at the sight of two women in a gossip session on the sidewalk. He paid for the drinks and started out. “I'll catch you in a li'l bit, blood … I gotta git out here 'n shake this young bitch up.”

“Got somethin' new?” Elijah asked, checking out the scene beyond the plate glass and the neon.

“I keep somethin' new, that's the name of the game.”

Elijah studied the reaction of the two women as they saw Precious Percy walk out of the bar. The one who didn't belong to him immediately eased across the street in a rush.

As though it were a scene from a play in pantomime, the young, inexperienced prostitute's eyes wobbled in fright.

The blow, a hard, fast, right hook caught her under the left ear. Elijah involuntarily grimaced with vicarious pain.

Percy grabbed her under the armpits and forced her to stand up, mouthing quick, precise instructions as he did so. Elijah knew, from having heard it many times before, that Precious Percy the Pimp was re-stating the ground rules.

He finished his drink and decided to move on, to make an entrance at some other joint. He turned slowly on the bar stool to stare coldly at Leelah and Nick, seated at one of the tables on the other side of the room. What the hell, he thought, why create a scene? when you move you lose.

Nick wet his lips and struck up a sudden conversation with a couple at the next table. Leelah stared back defiantly.

Elijah slid off the stool and made a grand exit, his head smoky, his chest out, his cool intact.